Fixing America’s broken schools

OPINION:

Last week, I argued in this column that if you want to know what has caused the chaos in our country, you need look no further than what is being taught in our public schools. This week, I provide the proof. Consider the following.

In New York City, the Chloe Day School just held a protest of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement inside one of its kindergarten classrooms, where 5- and 6-year-old children were being taught to chant “No Donald Trump” and hold up protest signs referencing how other children are being taken away from their families by ICE. When challenged, the school’s director, Sanayi Beckles-Canton, was far from apologetic. In fact, she boasted that these little boys and girls would have protested outside for all the world to see if not for the inclement weather.

Meanwhile, in San Diego, Bailey Hill Ringer, an elementary school teacher, caught the attention of more than 2.5 million people on TikTok after posting a video of herself turning the American flag upside down and displaying an “ABOLISH ICE” sign in her classroom. Ms. Ringer apparently thinks it’s much more important to indoctrinate little SJWs, or social justice warriors, than to spend more time teaching these children their ABCs.

This is just not “blue state” nonsense. It’s happening all over the nation. The examples are almost too numerous to count. In school after school, even in the reddest of red states, teachers are spending their time pushing their students toward social activism rather than helping them learn to read, write and count.

Take my home state of Oklahoma as but one example.

Everyone knows Oklahoma’s public schools are broken. Reading proficiency among eighth-graders across the state now stands at 20%. Math scores are even worse at 17%. Science comes in at a whopping 30% — what a success!

That’s right: Only 2 out of 10 of our students can read at grade level, and even fewer can do basic math calculations. Yet we have teachers across the state who apparently think it is better to use their precious classroom time indoctrinating students in how to protest than to help them learn to read, write, add and subtract.

Take, for example, Union High School in Tulsa, where the faculty, staff and administration recently led their students to the local streets to protest ICE, Donald Trump, and all other things conservative. Apparently, neo-Marxism and the foolishness of a borderless country now trump academic performance as a top priority for leaders of this school.

Then we have Jefferson Middle School in Oklahoma City, where the principal, Steve Smith, just sent out a communitywide email promoting a “planned anti-ICE student walkout,” in which he and his staff would offer “guidance” and “direction” to students on how to protest effectively. By the way, the proficiency scores in reading and mathematics for students attending Mr. Smith’s school are 5%. That’s right, only 5 out of 100 students at this school can read, write, add and subtract at grade level, and this guy is spending his time prioritizing protesting over grammar, algebra and English composition.

As I said above, everyone — and I do mean EVERYONE — knows America’s public schools are broken. Nearly everything you’re seeing in Minneapolis, Seattle, Los Angeles and Oklahoma City goes back to these terrible schools and terrible teachers. Still, it can be fixed, and, frankly, it’s not that complicated. The solution is really quite simple.

Every tax-supported public school in the country should be required by law to devote 100% of its time to reading, writing, arithmetic, science and American civics. That’s it. Everything else should go. Any program that does not support higher proficiency in these priority areas should be abandoned.

All the social engineering, political activism, gender theory and alphabet soup nonsense of LGBTQIA-DEI-CRT-SJW should be defunded. Entirely. Completely. NOW.

President Trump and Secretary of Education Linda McMahon should immediately call on every governor and state legislature of every state in the union to conduct a systemwide audit with the explicit goal of identifying how much money they spend on teaching the “three R’s” as well as what is being wasted on all this unnecessary, unproductive and extracurricular foolishness. Then take every dollar from these ideologically driven programs and reallocate it to the basics of reading, writing, arithmetic, science, and American government and history.

Any teacher not willing to demonstrate excellence in these essentials should be terminated. Those who are capable and willing should be rewarded.

That’s it. Problem solved. No more protests — at least not those being pushed by pompous pedagogues who should be fired if they can’t leave their politics and their sexual preferences at home.

You and I are paying for public schools, and we have the right to say what the curriculum should be. If our children can’t read, can’t write, can’t add and subtract, can’t tell you what a male and female is, and can’t tell you why America is exceptional and not evil, then our schools are a joke and, yes, everyone knows it.

• Everett Piper (dreverettpiper.com, @dreverettpiper), a columnist for The Washington Times, is a former university president and radio host. He is the author of “Not a Day Care: The Devastating Consequences of Abandoning Truth” (Regnery). He can be reached at epiper@dreverettpiper.com.